family matters

We don't have much family living in the same city as us, but we've been lucky enough to have family willing to cross the state of Ohio pretty much every weekend to see baby girl. This weekend marked Ellie's first slumber party at our house. Nanny, Jagee, Uncle TT, Uncle D, and Chubbs all spent the night. Ellie was a champ, with no issues falling asleep, and no crying once she was wrapped in her Miracle Blanket. Mommy and Daddy stayed up later than necessary watching a movie that wasn't that worth it, but got to bed around midnight. Stupidly, we ignored the dogs before we went to bed which meant that they hadn't been outside since around 7:00. Woops. As we went to sleep I said to David, "Do you ever think there have been 7 people and 2 dogs sleeping in this house before?"

Somehow, barely (and thanks to the concessions of everyone!) we made it work. Uncle TT had the "guestroom" as he's been staying with us for the past few weeks. Ellie's room converted into a room for Nanny and Jagee, filled with the air mattress from wall to wall. Uncle D slept on the couch in the living room. Baby did great. The dogs were not so awesome, but not too bad either. It was our fault they needed to go outside at 4:00 in the morning to relieve themselves. Alden's never too happy to sleep when he has friends over, so the early morning hours were spent wrestling with him, trying to convince him to stay in bed. Ultimately, we made it til 6:45, when we released the dogs, fed Ellie, then handed her off to her grandparents while we slept in til 9:15. Nice work, family!

I've always struggled with hosting people at our house. It's small, usually too hot (in the summer) or too cold (in the winter), we don't have cable, there's only one bathroom (as of now), and no mudroom or closet to store most of our messes. Since we've chosen to live away from most of our family but we want our family to be part of our lives, it's important to make people feel as comfortable as possible here. At 5:45 this morning, I wasn't so happy with this situation, but waking up at 9:15 to Nanny, Jagee, and Uncle D lined up in front of Ellie's changing table making and watching her smile, every frustration went away. I'll put up with no sleep, annoying dogs, and mess on top of mess to know my baby girl is growing up with all the love in the world. I hope our family feels the same.

priorities

I admit, I used to be the pickiest, most demanding eater in the world. Luckily, David was incredibly relaxed and always content to let me plan our meals so we never had any problems. I pretty much decided what I wanted to eat and when, and he was happy enough to go along with it. In addition to my demanding relationship with food, I can also admit that I had quite a few demanding rituals or preferences related to food that also impacted our everyday life.

I tried to cook meals as fast as possible using as few utensils as possible (generally works great except for that one time chicken velvet soup congealed to the bottom of the pot and the numerous times I've scorched frozen chicken trying to heat it up too fast). I had very little patience for David's attempts to cook meals. Even though his meals usually turned out great, I couldn't stand to watch him cook. Why didn't he put the pot of water on for the pasta before chopping up vegetables?!

I also had a well-established grocery store routine that involved fully planning our dinners for the week to best optimize ingredients and grocery shopping as efficiently as possible, rarely forgetting anything we needed. I wouldn't dare send David to the grocery store without a list and even then he typically came home without one of the items on the list. Could David have succesfully done our grocery shopping? Absolutely, but it wouldn't have been fast enough for me. And how could he get that brand of salt and vinegar potato chips?

Yesterday I asked David to stop at the grocery store after work. I had tried to make a pasta dinner the night before and realized only after having put the water on to boil that we didn't have enough pasta. Oops. So David was supposed to get pasta, feta cheese, spinach, decaf coffee and a "good creamer." I was rounding the bend of taking care of Ellie by myself for the day, looking forward to when David would be home to burp her after I fed her, change poopy diapers, and otherwise enjoy our little girl. I love being with her and getting to know her, but I absolutely appreciate and am ready for the help at the end of his workday. He left work at 4:00--he didn't get home until 4:50. Granted, he biked to work (and thus, the grocery store) but that still seemed like a long time (maybe only to me). When he could tell that I as bummed about it (or maybe I whined about it...) he told me that he stood there for a long time trying to pick out a "good creamer." He had tried to call a few times, but I was with Ellie without my phone. So he took a long time waiting for me to call back and, I guess, contemplating what would make for a "good creamer."

I understand his concern. A year ago, if he came home with French Vanilla instead of Vanilla Caramel, I would have asked "Why'd you get French Vanilla?" expecting him to realize his "mistake." He would have felt bad that he didn't live up to my ritualistic expectations. I've been lucky to have a man that will do just about anything (except for ballroom dance) to make me happy. I'm sure David could recall many more of my overly-demanding personality quirks, and I love him for putting up with them. These are the things that used to shape our everyday life, but everything is different now. I don't care what I eat or when. Efficiency and planning have flown out the window. We're lucky enough to have a pretty mellow baby, but our lives still revolve around her. I've looked at my maternity leave from work as a chance to take care of our daughter, not myself (this is obvious if you've seen me in the past 7 weeks as, yes I'm still wearing the same sweatpants). Now Ellie is the one who should get the benefits of her dad's thoughtfulness. It's all about Ellie and she's more important than the right kind of creamer. But I still appreciated the Sugar Babies!

He did get home in time to enjoy this:
Chunk of Love <3

things we like

Ellie has been more fussy between 9 and 11 pm the past few nights. While we'd rather be watching Dancing with the Stars, she has other interests.

Things she loves:

• Laying on her changing pad and staring out the window
• Staring out any window
• Staring at any light
• Staring at anything bright
• Listening and dancing to music (Ke$ha is a fav, to Dad's disappointment)
• Kissy faces

Things we love:

• Our baby girl, even when she's fussy
  

sunday morning love

embracing baby girl

i don't think i ever realized or fully understood what was happening inside my body during my pregnancy. i looked different and felt tickles and pushes inside my belly. i saw pictures of baby girl and tried to plan for her arrival. i KNEW there was a baby at the end of 40 weeks, but i don't think i ever really believed it or understood how it would all happen.

all throughout the pregnancy i felt anxious. i worried that i was eating the wrong foods or taking the wrong vitamin. i had probably gained too much weight and i didn't take the time to make myself look (or feel) good. no amount of positive doctors' appointments or confirmations of body parts at ultrasounds made me feel confident that things were okay. i worried about everything from whether she'd have a wacky combination of david's chin and my nose to if she'd have some type of chronic illness. i postponed so much of my excitement because i was scared something might go wrong.

baby girl came early thursday morning after we were sent to labor & delivery to be induced because of concerns about my blood pressure and her heartrate at a weekly appointment. i had imagined what it would be like when she was finally here and placed on my chest. i imagined i would be overwhelmed with happiness and look from her to david, amazed at what we had done. instead, they put her on my chest and i was still consumed with worry. she was barely making any noises; she definitely wasn't screaming, she looked blue. i just kept asking the doctors and nurses: "is she okay?" "why isn't she crying?" "is something wrong?" the nurse, doctor, and david repeatedly assured me she was fine. they took her over to the warmer and david stood next to her, telling me how she was cuddling her face up to his hand, how her long toes were grasping his fingers, how she had a death-grip on the nurse's hand. everything was fine.

we cuddled and loved baby girl in the hospital for the next day and a half. we had more visitors than i ever imagined--family and friends that came to welcome baby girl and family that hung around to clean our house, cook us dinner, and otherwise take care of all of our needs. the amount of well-wishes from the corners of our little world were overwhelming. we finally gave her a name when she was 33 hours old. we dressed her in her first real outfit and drove her home to meet aldy. we shared her during the days and took care of her during the nights. there are so many pictures i just look at over and over again.

we fell in love with the most perfect thing i never could have imagined.

she had her first doctor's appointment this morning and i was again, anxious. i held back tears in the waiting room, but cried as we waited for the doctor. i was crazy to think that my worries and anxieties would fall away after i saw her--they're only going to get worse!

it's going to be the most challenging thing in my life to stop worrying about all of the possible problems and issues that might come up during the rest of her life. it's something that i want and need to focus on. she is the most beautiful thing i've ever seen and i don't want to miss out on any of her awesomeness because i'm worried something might happen. things will happen. we'll deal with them as well as we know how. i'll love her more than i ever thought possible, and we'll have fun and smiles every day.

symptoms

a list of things i've experienced over the past 22 weeks:

nausea
gas
heartburn
heightened gag reflex
forgetfulness
backache
trouble sleeping
aversion to certain foods (city barbecue and chipotle)
achy feet
giant boobs
extra hair
headaches
blurred vision

sounds like fun, eh?

:)

trying to get excited

I'm so excited that I'm getting close to my 18th week of pregnancy... which in my little pregnancy planner translates to the start of the fifth month. That seems legit, which is exciting, but I'm still having a hard time letting myself be super excited. I'm definitely larger and rounder, but maybe not totally "showing" (unless you know I'm pregnant), I haven't felt the baby move, we don't know if it's a boy or a girl, and it just seems like there is soooo much more waiting time until this is actually real.

D has been super hyped on wool clothing lately, so he recently bought some wool baby booties... there are 2 pairs of gender-neutral baby shorts (given to us by an awesome friend) and a diaper bag (made by my mom) hidden in the closet in the potential nursery along with the booties. That's as far as we've gone with letting this avocado-sized parasite take up space in our house. I'm hoping that once we have an ultrasound in a few weeks and (hopefully!) find out what kind of parts it has it will be easy to go baby crazy and plan everything for the last few months!